A candidate site in the Bellevue Triangle for a new airport has been eliminated from consideration, leaving only two areas for continued study, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday.
Site 4, located generally east of state Highway 75 and north of U.S. Highway 20, was nixed because of terrain that would prevent aircraft from making Category No. 1 instrument landing approaches with minimums of 200-foot ceilings and half-mile horizontal visibility, the parameters used by pilots for deciding whether to continue landing or to abort.
The planned replacement for Friedman Memorial Airport is to include a state-of-the-art, all-weather landing system vastly superior to Friedman's relatively primitive navigation aids, which prevent commercial airlines from landing or taking off in lowered ceilings or poor horizontal visibility.
In announcing the elimination of Site 4, FAA program manager Cayla Morgan also said a draft Environmental Impact Statement scheduled for release this summer is being postponed until early 2011. Morgan said more research at the two remaining candidate sites—Site 12, just inside Blaine County east of the Camas County line and along the north side of U.S. Highway 20, and Site 10-A, in southern Blaine County east of Highway 75—is needed to refine ground data involved in determining costs of construction.
The EIS is being conducted by consultants Landrum and Brown under supervision of the FAA.
Morgan also said airport layout plans, vicinity land-use plans and reuse plans for the present airport would be posted on a special website, www.airportsites.net/SUN-EIS/default.htm.
Ironically, when it was included in a list of potential new airport locations, Site 4 attracted the most opposition of any locales and the most support.
Objectors basically were from the Bellevue area and ranch owners farther to the south. Some critics said a runway there would be flooded.
Support came from north-valley interests that insist that any new airport farther south than the Bellevue Triangle would harm the local economy because of road travel times to valley lodging.
As for Site 12, it embodies one unique feature: If it were selected, Highway 20 would need to be relocated and rebuilt for several miles because of its proximity to the runway.
The FAA has said Friedman is not compliant with federal standards and must be reconfigured or relocated. The Friedman Memorial Airport Authority is moving ahead with plans to relocate the facility.
